submissions
| The Magnetic Fields – World Love Lyrics
| 1 month ago
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I read this as an affectionate parody of the way we use the world as a prop in our personal romances, without really caring about anything beyond the radius between us, drinking leftism like wine. But Merritt's own comments suggest he was responding to the naive idea of world peace troped in cheesy rock music, substituting it with alcoholism and revolution, much more violent. |
submissions
| The Magnetic Fields – Dancing In Your Eyes Lyrics
| 1 month ago
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Early on, I think Merritt was quite interested in picking out little sensory details that directly *imply* something more about the memory/fantasy they appear in, e.g. "no glass in the windows, and nothing moves when the wind blows" to describe a train through a barren land in Sand Dollar. The brilliance is that, apart from everything symbolic about "when I look, I'll be dancing in your eyes", it forces your mind's eye to reconstruct a whole scene, like the generating set of a group: the lovers arms holding eachother close, whirling round as one, but half too shy to lock eyes, the other indulged in fixation. |
submissions
| The Magnetic Fields – 100,000 Fireflies Lyrics
| 4 months ago
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“I have a mandolin.
I play it all night long.
It makes me want to kill myself.”
These lines are about projecting feelings onto music. You want to kill yourself anyway, but when you play your sorrows out on the mandolin, you can blame them on the instrument, the instrument in your arms (where your lover isn't). It's a way of feeling in control. |
submissions
| The Magnetic Fields – Josephine Lyrics
| 5 months ago
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A song to reassure Jospehine you love her so much she'd still be special if you had power and success. I like the cute little anachronisms at the start. The lyrics are so pretty, and the instruments give me asmr, feels like someone running their fingers through my hair. |
submissions
| The Magnetic Fields – I Looked All Over Town Lyrics
| 5 months ago
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There's a smile in Stephin's voice in the first couple of lines, he's mocking the clown's little self-fulfilling prophecy of unloveability, his confident "and I know". Why doesn't he just change his outfit?? But it feels a little sympathetic too. In the end the clown gets to look down on us all, having defied our shallow hearts and their petty standards to the last. |
submissions
| The 6ths – Night Falls Like a Grand Piano Lyrics
| 5 months ago
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What a gorgeous song! I hope I can fall in love like this some day! I guess it's like mono no aware, all the world's transient beauty to decorate one moment of commitment. Everything becomes alien and fresh, the lover seems far a way, the home town could be China. There's a paradoxical urgency to slow down and linger on it all. I like how Clare Grogan's voice sounds a little goofy (no less beautiful!), undercuts the romance and makes the whole confession feel more daring and raw. |
submissions
| The Magnetic Fields – I Don't Really Love You Anymore Lyrics
| 5 months ago
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What if the title is sincere? It's about the later stages of getting over you. I'm already disillusioned with whatever made me love you in the first place. But I still loved you enough to feel your wounds, spent enough time staring at you to be your personal biographer. And loving you cost me too much energy to throw it all away. |
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